There's quite a few people maintaining Trinity, and the team was even larger previously.

But the rest of your point stands. Like MATE, the entire point is to maintain a UX standard for a group of people that grew attached to the old UI. Similar to people that ran Classic Theme on Windows XP/Vista/7.

In my defense when I first started using it it was one guy I think. That was like 14 years ago at this point.

If it wasn't for having a complex matrix of what means desktop APIs on GNU/Linux as Apple, Google and Microsoft have for their platforms.

Which even with the civil GUI war chaos, are easier to manage through than Linux desktop has been during its lifetime.

When I see a desktop with the clunky UI idioms and design ideas of the 2000s that also transports me back to my stuffy student dorm room, "refreshing" isn't the word that comes to my mind.

I am as well, but I am refreshed by a world where computers were literally so shitty they still stayed on desk. And despite that they still had better interactivity than they do at times today.